2 Dead, Including a Gunman, After a Police Shootout in Houston

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Houston police officers blocked an intersection while they responded to a shooting on Sunday.CreditGary Fountain/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press

By Mike McPhate

May 29, 2016

Eight people were shot, two of them fatally, on Sunday morning in an eruption of violence that involved a shootout between the Houston police and two men wielding at least one high-powered weapon, the authorities said.

One victim was shot and killed inside a vehicle, and both gunmen were shot, leaving one dead and the other critically wounded, officials said. Five other people, including two deputy constables, were wounded.

Houston’s interim police chief, Martha Montalvo, said the circumstances that led to the shooting were not immediately clear. “We’re trying to piece all of this together,” she said.

The shooting began shortly after 10 a.m., officials said. An officer arriving at Memorial Drive Tire & Auto, an auto repair shop, was met by a barrage of gunfire, which left his vehicle riddled with bullet holes, the authorities said.

“By the grace of god, he did not sustain any injuries,” Chief Montalvo said.

During the shootout, one deputy constable was shot in a hand and the other in his tactical vest, the police said. The conditions of the other people who were injured were not immediately known.

Neither suspect was identified. John Cannon, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department, described the dead gunman as the “main active shooter,” who is believed to have fatally shot the person in the vehicle, then fired at the police officers and a Police Department helicopter.

That gunman was fatally shot by a member of Houston’s SWAT team.

The role of the second gunman was less clear. “We’re trying to figure out what his role in this was,” Officer Cannon said during a news conference. “Was he a suspect, or someone who happened to be armed with a gun?”

Asked if the police regarded him as a suspect, he said, “We’ll say he is a suspect because he had a gun.”

The wounded gunman was taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said.

An ABC 13 news helicopter hovering over the scene of the shooting showed a nearby gas station gutted by a fire that the police said had been ignited during the shootout and a police car with its rear windshield blown out.

The Police Department’s helicopter was hit by five bullets, Chief Montalvo said. No one in the helicopter was injured.

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